One Grave Too Many

a club. Hit by a truck—any number of things.”
    Diane laid a piece of typing paper on her desk and searched in her drawer until she found a long pair of tweezers. Holding the bone under the desk lamp, she pulled a gossamer wad from the small cavity in the shaft.
    “What?” asked Frank, leaning forward.
    “Spiderweb.”
    She put the web in a small wax envelope similar to ones that stamp collectors use. She gently tapped the bone. Tiny dark specks fell from the hollow of the bone to the paper. She examined the detritus with a hand lens. Frank stood and leaned on the desk. The hair on the tops of their heads touched. Diane raised her head and looked directly into his eyes, which were so close to hers she thought she could probably feel the flutter of his eyelashes.
    “Bug parts,” she said.
    “Bug parts? Is this important?”
    “It is, indeed. It tells us that during warm weather when these creatures are up and about, the bone was bare and open for them to take up residence.”
    “Died during the warm months, then?”
    “Perhaps.”
    “How long ago? Can you tell?”
    Diane rubbed the tips of her fingers along the shaft of the bone. She was relieved that it was not from the adopted daughter of Frank’s friends. “I’d say this bone hasn’t seen flesh for several years. How long have the girl and her boyfriend been missing?”
    “A couple of months.”
    “Does anyone know where the boyfriend is?”
    Frank shrugged.
    “Do you see the roughening of the bone here and here?” Diane touched two areas on the bone.
    “Yes.”
    “Those are where the neck and shoulder muscles were attached.”
    “That would be here—” Frank traced his fingers down Diane’s neck to her collarbone.
    “Approximately. Yes.”
    “I’ve missed you,” he whispered.
    “The size and texture of the attachments make me suspect that this was a rather strong lad.”
    “Lad?”
    She pointed to the proximal end of the bone. “The epiphysis has only begun to unite, which suggests an age of between seventeen and thirty.”
    Frank stood up straight. “So that means that at the place they suspect their teenage daughter disappeared, they found the partial remains of possibly a teenage boy who had been hit with enough force to break his collarbone.”
    “Yes.”
    Frank frowned. “I don’t like that.”
    “No. I shouldn’t think you would.”
    “What are the odds that it’s just a coincidence that they find the bones of this boy in a place where they were looking for a missing girl?” he said.
    “Slim to none.”
    Diane put the insect parts in another envelope, inspected the original plastic bag for more debris and handed everything back to Frank. “It looks like you have a serious problem on your hands.”

    Diane was craving sleep as she walked up the steps of the converted old Greek revival house containing her apartment. The dark shadow of herself cast by the dim porch light reflected in the glass pane of the outside door. She looked at her watch—2:10 A.M. She counted to herself. Four hours’ sleep, max. She looked up at the sky. Dark clouds backlit by a full moon.
    “Don’t rain,” she commanded the sky. “I don’t want to deal with rain tomorrow.”
    Her fingers, made tender from assembling the exhibits, hurt as she turned her door key in the lock. As she climbed the stairs leading to the second floor, her back muscles burned and her legs cramped from stooping and lifting all day. She fumbled with her keys and opened her door to a dark apartment. She reminded herself to start leaving a light on.
    She was bone tired, and, to top off the long day, she had offended Leonard, one of the security guards, by asking him not to be rude to the workers. From the set of his mouth she could tell he hadn’t liked being told how to act. She’d figure out something to say to him tomorrow. He’d get over it in time. After Milo, she must seem like an intruder to some of the older staff.
    Diane would have liked to soak in a tub of warm water for an hour, maybe two, but settled for a quick shower and crawled into bed and dropped off into the unconsciousness of sleep.

    Even in the dark, the foliage blazed a brilliant green. The color was blinding and Diane didn’t know how to find her way through it. Fear burned white-hot in her stomach. Off in the distance, a burst of gunfire startled her into full running panic. Everywhere she turned, vines clutched her legs, pulled at her body. Enormous heavy leaves slapped her face. She